Week 2: Myth and Abrahamic Religions

We've learned that narrative stories are extremely important for a lot of religions. They provide a basis for our beginnings, creator(s), surroundings, way of life and our customs. Narrative stories are main reasons for many religious practices. They let people see their own history and their own ancestors. Most importantly they are often building blocks for their expected practices ans behaviors for their religion and their interactions with the afterlife.

Narrative stories are forms of myths. The most common myth about myths is that they are not true. A mythological event or story does not necessarily have to be false. Myths are special in comparison to legends, fables or just plain history because they capture the essence of truth, authority and credibility in a religion. Myths are so important to religion. They help create background for a religion and its practicing group. People often rely on myths for reasoning behind many of their practices. In a polytheistic religion, myths provide background of the Gods. In a monotheistic religion, the myths focus more on ancestors.

For example, in Christianity and in Judaism (note that this myth works a bit differently in each), the story of the Messiah or Jesus is very important to how people practice their religion. As we learned in class, the faith aspect of Christianity became more important to Christians. Because the Messiah, the messenger of God, was associated with such great faith and was crucified and resurrected, he represented an eternal life. As a result baptism became a common practice to ensure that this eternal life was reality to members.

What I found very interesting about this myth was the concept of Christology. It plays on the myth itself ans causes there to be different types of believers, ranging from those who do not believe and see Jesus simply as a healer to those who are strong believers and say that Jesus was a complete embodiment of God himself. I find this so interesting because it shows how a small change in viewpoint on a myth can cause large variances in beliefs. This truly shows that myth is important for the formation of social groups.

In comparison to the other religions, myth is still very important in all of them. In ancient religions such as Greco-Roman religions, myths show how their gods we similar to humans. This helps form religions, and some mystery cults that were based off of how much the Gods' behavior. We can even see the power of mtyh in Islam, which is even more similar to Christianity and Judaism. The Messiah appears in Islamic myths as well but takes a new form of Muhammad. The value placed on him can be considered more sacred, but because the story is a bit different, ideas of these religions are very different.

As for myths outside of our discussion, the first thing that comes to mind is science, as weird as that sounds. There are many myths in science based on our health and chemistry and so on. Regardless if these types of myths are true or not, sometimes people have different viewpoints and behaviors based on a myth. The best example of this I think is the old radioactive microwave concern. I know plenty of people who are cautious to stay far from microwaves while they are in use in case the radio waves from it will affect them. Then there are others who are not convinced that it is an issue. Here this myth has created two social groups, believers and non believers. It is similar like varying beliefs in Christianity.